When you come to the edge of all the light you know,
and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown,
faith is knowing one of two things will happen:
there will be something solid to stand on, or
you will be taught how to fly.
Barbara J. Winter
Chart of the Day: Fed Printing and Stocks
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| Via Wealth Daily |
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| Via LFC: Caption this.... |
(Tom Woods). I am sitting here at the DMV. 25% of one guy's job is to show people where the machine that gives you a number is. Note what does not occur to them: move the number machine to where people can see it as they come in. Instead, they have hand sanitizer where you would think the numbers would be.
They've never been to a sandwich shop or taken Southwest Airlines... A lot of times they want to have people presort into queues, e.g., titles, renewals, etc. It reminds me when I went to renew my passport last year at the USPS. It turned out only one window supported passports, you first had to have an appointment (mostly to double-check completed forms), and they logged appointments in a paper notebook. This kind of nonsense just drives a former MIS/business school professor nuts. What you're describing, Tom, is designing for error. Donald Norman wrote a great book on this years ago called "The Psychology of Everyday Things" (I think the title got changed at one point to "The Design of Everyday Things"). For example, have you noticed some machines won't take a card unless it's inserted the "right way"?
(Reason Magazine). FDA bureaucrats think that they know better than you how to handle your genetic information. This is outrageous. (This involves a sub-$100 genomic test being regulated.)
What's next-censoring health websites just in case a hypochondriac might treat an imaginary disease? I halfway expect Col Jessup to do a cameo "You can't handle the truth!" Of course, we have a right to know what's going on with our own bodies, not a paternalist government or some crony physician cartel censoring us. We are talking objective data here, not subjective judgment.
(LFC, same article). The state hates innovation. Whenever the market produces something new, the state either tries to dominate or destroy that industry. This company produces self-testing kits so that you can see whether you carry any number of certain genes. No one has ever been hurt by their product. Yet the FDA is banning it. Why? Maybe a competing industry has sway. Maybe just because the feds like banning. (Teal)
You're over-analyzing this. It's plain old paternalism. We might diagnose and treat ourselves; we are not competent--we haven't through years of med school. We might do something drastic like kill ourselves over bad news. Better let some stoic doctor meter the bad news to us.... This doesn't require a conspiracy, people; it's just Big Nanny as usual; let's make medical product ads talk about side-effects, no high-carb foods and drinks in school vending machines, limits on soda sizes, warnings on cigarette packs...
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| Courtesy of the artist via LFC |
Expletive deleted! Obviously you never almost got bumped from a flight because some idiot "forgot" to stamp your boarding pass after completing the first screen and you had to go through a second wand search at the gate. I guess you just don't have a problem with the concept of unconstitutional searches to begin with. Not one American ever brought down a passenger plan in decades of domestic air travel. It not just that the searches are unconstitutional, they are ineffective. There have been audit tests showing 15% or more failures.
(Bastiat Institute). Big day today: my property tax bill came in the mail. It includes an itemization of eighteen different stated reasons for the parish's extortion. Only two of these items -- those for the fire district and the mosquito district -- pertain to services I actually value. (Whether I value them as highly as I'm being charged is another matter.) These two items add up to just 22 percent of the total. The parish army of occupation (humorously identified on the bill as "law enforcement") accounts for only 11 percent of the total. (Of course, this local army will supplement its tax revenue with off-the-record theft and on-the-record theft via fines and forfeitures.) The six items that compose the largest amount (more than half) of the total pertain in one way or another to the parish schools. We teach our kids at home, however, so in our case this tax has no user-fee rationale whatsoever and amounts to clear-cut armed robbery.
I always get a huge laugh out of those Republican types who wax lyrical about the beauties of local government, which they would have us believe is "close to the people" and subject to our control in a way that the national government is not. It's close to the people all right: close to the people's wallets. In the USA, "the state" consists not only of the national government, but also of the thousands of state and local governments that infest every town, city, county, region, and special district in the land. Good old American federalism: the system under which we are ripped off from top to bottom. - Dr. Robert Higgs
Speaking to the GOP federalism argument, we know that there are several issues with state/local Statism and/or protectionism, including anti-competitive health insurance mandates, occupation licensing cartels, etc. If you are going to have social programs, I would prefer a more bottom-up/decentralized approach, but abuses against individual liberties can occur at any level of government.
(LFC) "Boston resident Sal Esposito has been called to jury duty, but there's one thing standing in the way of his ability to serve: He's a cat...'Sal is a member of the family so I listed him on the last Census form under pets but there has clearly been a mix-up'...Anna filed to have her pet disqualified from the service requirement...The court rejected the request...Sal will have to report for duty" (Teal)
Obviously a cat burglar was on trial...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qSLvkskXFA
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| Via LFC |
I don't have the latest numbers but in April 2012, 'The public’s share of the project is slated to be $548 million and the Vikings must come up with $427 million.... the real cost is much greater because his calculation does not include the value of the property tax exemption on the stadium and the parking ramps, nor the value of the sales tax exemption on construction materials." Extortion of the taxpayer by crony Big Sports threatening to relocate franchises....
(Libertarian Republic). Pope Francis is why we have separation of church and state.
As a Catholic libertarian (there are others among us like Tom Woods, Andrew Napolitano, and Lew Rockwell), I have to cringe over the rhetoric, but if you've tracked papal documents over the past century or so, you'll know that they have been critical of both socialism and capitalism and try to flesh out a middle way. It's hardly a "new enemy". My personal view is that religious leaders should stick to their core competencies of faith and morals and steer clear of science, economics and politics (except on moral issues like the rights of preborn children). I think that the pontiffs have been attacking a straw man of capitalism and free markets, unduly influenced by "progressive' rhetoric. As to the quotes, I think Francis has a talent for stirring the pot and a populist streak, but I don't find his discussions at all persuasive, little more than warmed-over progressivism. For non-Catholics, the pope's authority does not extend to economics. On a more hopeful note, he and the incompetent progressive/populist President of Argentina have never gotten along that well.
(Citizens Against Government Waste). Should taxpayers foot the bill for government workers’ student debt? SHARE your thoughts below.
Hell no! Government workers making up to, if not over, six figures in compensation (salary and benefits) need yet another perk at taxpayer expense? Where does it end?
(Drudge Report). REPORT: Cop raped teen in squad car during routine traffic stop...
Whereas it is true that everyone accused of a crime, including a police officer, is entitled to his day in court, I believe the police caught the officer searching for the victim after the incident (during a night shift), the woman's car was impounded and could be tracked to the officer in question, the woman filed her complaint within hours of the incident, and a rape kit was done. I'm sure there was other evidence, including the victim's description of her assailant. I just can't help wondering why so many discussants seem so skeptical of the arrest--simply because he's a police officer?
Katy Perry and Her Fans
An autistic girl, Jodi DiPiaza, sang a duet with her idol....
Olivia Wise, a 16-year-old with brain cancer whom notably covered another Perry hit, died Monday.
Musical Interlude: My iPod Shuffle Series
Kansas, "Carry On Wayward Son". In my tween years, I had a thing for early American history and, for some reason, Greek/Roman mythology--in fact, whenever Jeopardy had a relevant category, I could sweep it. This is such a brilliant rock song--great lyrics, arrangement, and vocals. Any mythology buff will instantly think of Icarus with the verse "I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high". Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos on Crete but lost favor with the king and was imprisoned. Daedalus fashioned two pair of wings, a pair for his son Icarus, made of wax and feathers for their escape from Crete; he advised a flight not too high (the sun) or too low (the sea); Icarus ignored his father's warning and soared, where the sun melted the wax, and Icarus plunged to his death in the sea. Yet the rest of the song doesn't really fit the story (and note that Kansas recorded another song called "Icarus"). "Wayward" is synonymous with "prodigal son"; Icarus may have been disobedient but not wayward, and there was no hope for him to carry on with his life once he plunged to his death. My take of the song is that he is using Icarus to exemplify the impetuous nature of youth and the consequences of our mistakes, yet with perseverance we can muddle through a rough start.
